Nuclear physics is undoubtedly a many-body problem. A nice introduction into the present status of this subject may be found in the comprehensive mono graph by P. Ring and P. Schuck "The Nuclear Many-Body Problem" (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York 1980). However, in view of the many challenging problems that remain to be tackled, it is sensible to consider systems with few particles as model cases. These provide the basis for solving the sophisticated many-body problem posed by intermediate and heavy nuclei. Out of the large number of existing nuclear systems, few-particle, that is few-nucleon, systems can be singled out to form a special group. This is possi ble because a comparatively small number of degrees of freedom (or dynamic variables) is required for a complete description of such systems. In these Lectures we utilize this to study few-body systems in great detail, in particular three-and four-body systems. In contrast to published monographs on the subject, we deal not just with nucleonic degrees of freedom but consider also non-nucleonic degrees of freedom. The range of approaches and methods examined exceeds the scope of other textbooks. The Lectures are organized in such a way as to guide the uninitiated reader through the essentials of solving the dynamical equations of few-body systems directly towards practical applications. Formally oriented readers might like to supplement their reading with texts such as "The Quantum Mechanical Few Body Problem" by W. GlOckle (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York 1983).

Nuclear physics is undoubtedly a many-body problem. A nice introduction into the present status of this subject may be found in the comprehensive mono graph by P. Ring and P. Schuck "The Nuclear Many-Body Problem" (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York 1980). However, in view of the many challenging problems that remain to be tackled, it is sensible to consider systems with few particles as model cases. These provide the basis for solving the sophisticated many-body problem posed by intermediate and heavy nuclei. Out of the large number of existing nuclear systems, few-particle, that is few-nucleon, systems can be singled out to form a special group. This is possi ble because a comparatively small number of degrees of freedom (or dynamic variables) is required for a complete description of such systems. In these Lectures we utilize this to study few-body systems in great detail, in particular three-and four-body systems. In contrast to published monographs on the subject, we deal not just with nucleonic degrees of freedom but consider also non-nucleonic degrees of freedom. The range of approaches and methods examined exceeds the scope of other textbooks. The Lectures are organized in such a way as to guide the uninitiated reader through the essentials of solving the dynamical equations of few-body systems directly towards practical applications. Formally oriented readers might like to supplement their reading with texts such as "The Quantum Mechanical Few Body Problem" by W. GlOckle (Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York 1983).

Few-body systems are both technically relatively simple and physically non trivial enough to test theories quantitatively. For instance the He-atom played historically an important role in verifying predictions of QED. A similar role is contributed nowadays to the three-nucleon system as a testing ground far nuclear dynamics and maybe in the near future to few-quark systems. They are also often the basic building blocks for many-body systems like to some extent nuclei, where the real many-body aspect is not the dominant feature. The presentation of the subject given here is based on lectures held at var ious places in the last ten years. The selection of the topics is certainly subjec tive and influenced by my own research interests. The content of the book is simply organized according to the increasing nu mb er of particles treated. Be cause of its conceptual simplicity single particle motion is very suitable for in troducing the basic elements of scattering theory. Using these elements the two-body system is treated for the specific case of two nucleons, which is of great importance in the study of the nuclear interaction. Great space is devoted to the less trivial few-body system consisting of three particles. Again physical examples are taken solely from nuclear physics. Finally the four particle system is discussed so as to familiarize the reader with the techniques required for the formulations of n-bodies in general.

It is apparent from the history of science, that few-body problems have an interdis ciplinary character. Newton, after solving the two-body problem so brilliantly, tried his hand at the Sun-Earth-Moon system. Here he failed in two respects: neither was he able to compute the motion of the moon accurately, nor did he understand the reason for that. It took a long time to understand the fundamental importance of Newton's failure, and only Poincare realised what was the fundamental difficulty in Newtons programme. Nowadays, the term deterministic chaos is associated with this problem. The deep insights of Poincare were neglected by the founding fathers of Quantum Physics. Thus history was repeated by Bohr and his students. After quantising the hydrogen atom, they soon found that the textbook case of a three-body problem in atomic physics, the 3He-atom, did not yield to the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantisation methods. Only these days do people realise what precisely were the difficulties connected to this semi classical way of treating quantum systems. Our field, as we know it today, began in principle in the early 1950's, when Watson sketched the outlines of three-body scattering theory. Mathematical rigour was achieved by Faddeev and thereafter, at the beginning of the 1960's, the quantum three-body prob lem, at least as far as short-range forces were concerned, w&s tamed. In the years that followed, through the work of others, who first applied Faddeev's methods, but later added new techniques, the three-and four-body problems became fully housebroken.

The Asia-Pacific Conferences on Few-Body Problems in Physics tackle cover the various aspects of few-body systems in physics, with high caliber contributions from internationally renowned researchers. Readers will gain a clear picture of the latest developments in the field in both the theoretical and experimental sectors.The scope of these proceedings covers research in the following areas: three-body forces and few-nucleon dynamics, hadron structure and QCD; exotic hadrons and atoms; effective field theory in few-body physics; electromagnetic and weak processes in few-body systems; few-body dynamics in atoms, molecules, Bose-Einstein condensates and quantum dots; few-body approaches to unstable nuclei, nuclear astrophysics and nuclear clustering aspects; and hypernuclear physics.